I sit here in a dark bedroom with only a dim light emanating from my laptop.
My 7-year-old daughter sleeps beside me. She twitches feverishly, mumbling incomprehensible things into the silent room. Her red curls dance over the pillow like flyaway embers. I hold her hot and sweaty hand, even though she’s not aware.
The dog lies on the floor at the foot of the bed, he’s still wet from the beach and smells like salted wool. Now and then he stretches suddenly, stiffening his legs into the air, groaning with bliss. The wild rose I cut from the garden drops its first petal onto my bedside table.
I’ve just received an email update from a close family member who’s bravely battling cancer 10 thousand miles away. The electric fire squeaks every few seconds, barely giving off enough heat before the surrounding frigid air cools it. My tea has long turned bitter.
This is life.
Wherever I turn, there’s fragility and beauty, horror and unspeakable gratitude. It is marked by disappearances and unfolding; a constant dance between shifting patterns.
If it’s true that life teaches us about loss, then true spiritual practice helps us learn how to lose gracefully. Loss is integral to everything we love, so how can we possibly bear the inevitable?
We make life a prayer. A prayer that beholds the unspectacular.
